


How She Should be Loved

by DaughterofProspero



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Multiple Partners, POV Third Person, Prostitution, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5725711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofProspero/pseuds/DaughterofProspero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That I neither feel how she should be loved nor<br/>know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that<br/>fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake."</p><p>Beatrice was not Benedick's first. (But she was his last)</p>
            </blockquote>





	How She Should be Loved

  1. She was his first, but he wasn’t hers. The well-meaning men who’d bought her services for him whooped and whistled as she lead him to their room. She was a name lost in sultry whispers and rumpled sheets, a flushed face scrunched into an ecstatic “ah”, a face that grows less familiar as time moves invariably forward. She’s becoming a forgotten half of their shared experience. He knows she doesn’t remember him much either. And it was good – it was more than good. He’d received instruction: What, how, where. He told himself he’d never do that again, falter like a frightened boy. He would learn of the body before him, learn to make it sing. The left side of the bed was cold when he awoke.
  2. His fourth was bubbles and flirtation, ever preserved as vague laughter in a clouded corner of his conciseness. She’d sidle up to him, bumping his shoulder playfully and just a little too often for it to be completely the alcohol’s fault. He would reciprocate, flashing charming grins her way, lowering his voice to a breathy dialect of palatalised sounds. He too, could not fully blame drink. He was still only learning the potential of a smile, a wink. Eking himself along the tightrope between diplomacy and dalliance. She giggled when she spoke, in between kisses, and even as she writhed beneath him. She would unashamedly place him where she needed and as he explored her, he would try and remember what turned her giggles to gasps and moans.
  3. The sixth? – It doesn’t matter – was cunning, confident. From the moment their eyes met in his innocent perusal of the room she made a show of sizing him up. Dragging her wicked eyes down his body with artful precision (Brown eyes, maybe…no, no they were grey. Stormy grey eyes that flashed with lightening when she flipped them over, pressed her palms into the mattress, and climaxed above him as he looked up at her in aroused surprise.) He hadn’t entered the inn seeking a bedmate but she had the will to change many-a-man’s-mind as it pleased her. Wiping off a wine bottle with deliberate strokes weakened his stance considerably. She need only touch him once – daring to take her time tasting the shell of his ear after telling him she knew what room he was in. And to leave it unlocked.
  4. Rebellion immanent, number _ was comfort and desperation, and hope rolled into a single serving-woman. Until that night she’d only spoken to him in passing smiles and nods. It was fear, and need that coupled them. He’d found her sitting in a corner, methodically combing her fingers through her long, auburn hair. He’d offered her a hand and she grasped it, hauling herself to her feet, then pulled herself to him in one swift motion, shivering against his chest. Awkwardly, he mimicked her action from a second before, running his fingers through her nonexistent tangles. They stayed like that until she raised her head to look at him, placed her cold hands on either side of his face and gently brought her lips to his. Once, and then again and again, peppering his mouth with anxious kisses. He responded in turn, and they clumsily made their way to her room where they spent the night staving off the morning. When she fell asleep, curled against his side, her hair like a hedgehog’s quills running down the length of her back he left.
  5. Beatrice. Years of bitter banter, low blows, and grudging laughter have lead them to their marriage bed. Their first night she is unabashedly shy in her paradoxical way; betraying her inexperience with nervous quips. It is foreign initially, a flavour both have imagined, but never tasted. Little by little, they develop their palettes. They delight in learning each other’s bodies they way they know each other’s minds. Sometimes they spend foreplay reminding each other of previous fumbles. Sometimes she’s embarrassed, sometimes he forgets he’s the only one she’s known. Once, Margret almost walked in on them. But together, always together they remind, and they touch, and they learn. Theirs is a dialogue far from finished, and hardly begun.



**Author's Note:**

> So: In rehearsal ages ago, I remember super early on, there was a very long session our Benedick and I had with our director about Beatrice and Benedick's relationship, personal details, history etc. And after, like 2 hours of that, we break for dinner. Right as we come back from dinner. Our director casually says - "Oh, one thing I forgot to ask you: Is Benedick a virgin?"  
> And I was like, yoooooooooooo  
> He took a moment, then answered "no".  
> And I was like, "YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
> 
> 2 years later, here's this.
> 
> Anyway. Yeah. There's that. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. :)


End file.
